Jack Mullen Writs of Assistance: A Fire In The Heart Of A Man In February 1761, a young John Adams sat in the Council Chamber of Boston’s Old State House and listened to James Otis rage for nearly five hours against the writs of assistance — those blank-check general warrants that let royal customs officers kick in doors, ransack warehouses, and paw through private papers on nothing more than suspicion. Adams never forgot it. Nearly sixty years later he described the scene to William Tudor, recalling the five judges…
